Description: I-75 Middle School is an exceptionally large middle school that has an attendance close to 1700 students. Currently I-75 Middle instructs students in the 6th-8th grade with programs in Gifted Education, ESS, ELL, and self contained classroom settings. The school is one level with wings that segregate the grade levels. The culture of the school is one that focuses on design and innovation but still has many who teach in traditional methodologiesand environments. The norms within the school are an expectation of high quality work that is engaging to the students to promote real, authentic learning.
General characteristics: The staff within the school range in age from fresh out of college in their early twenties to those nearing retirement or working past the age of retirement. Their is a growing number of staff who design and implement on the cutting edge with technology and this portion is solely growing to incorporate more into the fold. The student body is diverse but heavily hispanic with greater than 50% of the student body being hispanic. I-75 middle is a Title I school with 80% of the students on free/reduced lunch. Parents of the student body range in backgrounds, but there is a large portion that work within the textile industry, and have relocated from different parts of the country, including many from Mexico. Because of the transient nature of the families here, and their country of birth. the values and views on education in American public schools is varying. Many see value in what their children learn at school, while a large portion don’t understand the importance of education due to their past experiences in other education systems or for cultural reasons.
Strategies for Identifying Opinion Leaders: Identify early adopters and staff that are already pushing the envelope in their own classroom given the limitations of their current infrastructure. This sampling of staff is easily identified by their peers, and from the work their students are producing. Also within the school are certain team leaders and administrators who encourageand push peers and staff to innovate move forward with new technologies and delivery techniques.
Strategies of Utilizing Opinion Leaders:
Opinion leaders will championthe LMS within their own team and department (math/science/literacy etc). They will also act as a point and a reference base for using the LMS and mentoring others in the process. The goal of the LMS should be to actively encourage and enable all of the staff members to use it in some form or another. Many of the teachers at this school are not comfortable using technology and need to be taken out of their comfort zone slowly. These opinion leaders will be charged with making sure their groups are attempting to use the LMS within their classroom, however small that implementation may be initially.
I-75 Middle School is an exceptionally large middle school that has an attendance close to 1700 students. Currently I-75 Middle instructs students in the 6th-8th grade with programs in Gifted Education, ESS, ELL, and self contained classroom settings. The school is one level with wings that segregate the grade levels. The culture of the school is one that focuses on design and innovation but still has many who teach in traditional methodologies and environments. The norms within the school are an expectation of high quality work that is engaging to the students to promote real, authentic learning.
The staff within the school range in age from fresh out of college in their early twenties to those nearing retirement or working past the age of retirement. Their is a growing number of staff who design and implement on the cutting edge with technology and this portion is solely growing to incorporate more into the fold. The student body is diverse but heavily hispanic with greater than 50% of the student body being hispanic. I-75 middle is a Title I school with 80% of the students on free/reduced lunch. Parents of the student body range in backgrounds, but there is a large portion that work within the textile industry, and have relocated from different parts of the country, including many from Mexico. Because of the transient nature of the families here, and their country of birth. the values and views on education in American public schools is varying. Many see value in what their children learn at school, while a large portion don’t understand the importance of education due to their past experiences in other education systems or for cultural reasons.
Identify early adopters and staff that are already pushing the envelope in their own classroom given the limitations of their current infrastructure. This sampling of staff is easily identified by their peers, and from the work their students are producing. Also within the school are certain team leaders and administrators who encourage and push peers and staff to innovate move forward with new technologies and delivery techniques.
Strategies of Utilizing Opinion Leaders:
Opinion leaders will champion the LMS within their own team and department (math/science/literacy etc). They will also act as a point and a reference base for using the LMS and mentoring others in the process. The goal of the LMS should be to actively encourage and enable all of the staff members to use it in some form or another. Many of the teachers at this school are not comfortable using technology and need to be taken out of their comfort zone slowly. These opinion leaders will be charged with making sure their groups are attempting to use the LMS within their classroom, however small that implementation may be initially.